POTD #54 Jason Koon vs Bryn Kenney in the Triton Montenegro $150k

Will BK be the Bubble Boy?

Jason Koon had another great series in Triton Montenegro, winning two titles to give him a dozen Triton titles lifetime. He closed out the trip winning the $30k PLO Bounty Quattro, which is a more challenging format than one might think, but has as non-serious an atmosphere as a $30k tournament can have, especially when it’s the final tournament of the trip. Many of the NLHE players have left town and many of the players are “upside down” on the trip; even if they win the $30k, they’re going home with less money than they came with.

The other title Jason won was as serious a tournament as you’re going to get, the $150k NLHE. It is the highest buy-in non-invitational tournament and usually the toughest tournament of the whole series. It’s always a special tournament and features some of the most skilled play you will see on a Triton stream. Many times when I describe a hand as “interesting,” it’s a euphemism for “punt,” but in today’s hand Jason played a hand vs. Bryn Kenney that was one of the more interesting and confounding hands I saw on stream throughout the series. Was it a punt? Let’s read on.

HH: Triton Poker App

Triton Montenegro - Event #12 $150K NLH 8-Handed
20k/40k/40k (SB/BB/BBA) 19 left 17 cash

Bryn Kenney (1.025M) raises t80k UTG6 with Q♣️Q♥️ folds to Jason Koon (2.3M) who calls A♣️4♥️ in the SB, Poseidon Ho (160k) folds in the BB

Flop (240k) 7♣️6♣️3♦️: Jason bet 50k, Bryn raises t255k, Jason shoves, Bryn calls, Jason rivers a straight.

What Was Jason Thinking

I think Jason likely picked something up on Poseidon telegraphing a fold preflop. Watching the replay, Poseidon folded without looking at his cards after Jason called. If you know the BB is going to fold preflop, A4o is an appealing continue closing the action vs. a minraise. A three-low-card flop with a potential straight is a very nice flop for Jason’s SB defense range; it’s still pretty nice even if Bryn recognized Jason peeled wider because he noticed Poseidon was going to fold. Jason leads the flop with a nuts advantage in a situation where he can put a lot of pressure on Bryn two off the money. Bryn raises and Jason has a close decision, but with the Ac in his hand, Jason is never getting it in vs. a better ace high and has some backup when called. Shoving for 90% pot can never be that big a mistake when you have 30% vs. his most likely value hands. Jason went for it, saw the bad news, and then saw the good news.

What Sam Thinks (No Cheating)

I think preflop is close if you think Poseidon is 100% to fold, but I think is winning if know Poseidon is folding and you think Bryn will play postflop as if you have a normal SB defense range. The flop lead seems dicey to me, because it seems like Bryn will have a very strong preflop range, and he might be able and willing to shove over a flop lead with an overpair so close to the money. If Bryn can play shoves, Jason’s hand is the exact type of hand that would have a little too much nut or bluffing potential to want to bet/fold. If I played leads on the flop, I think I’d pick a polar size that could generate some more folds vs. unpaired hands. Once Bryn raises, the hand turns into less of a technical poker hand and more of a hand about reading the man; if he’s got it he’s got it, but you have to make the right read. Jason’s hand has all the properties of a good bluff-shoving candidate, and it’s just a question of whether Bryn is raise/folding enough. I don’t know the answer to that question and would lean towards no, but calling the raise OOP or folding to the raise are also pretty ugly. I don’t like shoving, but it seems like the best of three unexciting options.

What The Solver Says

The solver gives an interesting output, which is Jason leads the flop for a small size with a very high frequency, and Bryn almost never folds the flop with range, but also never raises. Not rarely raises, never raises. The idea of this play in solver land is that, as the chip leader, you get to make a small bet that freezes the short stack and lets the big stack showdown for cheap or put more pressure on the shortie later in the hand. The short stack is happy to co-operate and play small-pot poker two off the money with some micro stacks in the tourney. We don’t know what the solver says Jason should do vs. a raise, because it never raises as Bryn.

What Sam Thinks and Grade

This is one of those hands where Jason makes three decisions— all of them are defensible, but they all feel marginal, and it adds up to a hand that overall feels like there’s something he could have done differently. Preflop makes sense, but Jason is getting the same pot odds as if Bryn open raises to 2.75x and Jason was in the BB. I’d feel pretty gross calling a 2.75x with A4o from the BB here, but it would be close. Calling a minraise from the SB with a BB who is sitting out, we’re getting the same pot odds, but the PFR will give us credit for having a tighter range, which makes me think the call is fine.

Jason’s flop lead is a nice find vs. a computer who will play zero raises, but like most aggressive big-stack plays that ICM outputs use, they only work if your opponent cooperates. Given that Bryn did raise, and that in ICM outputs I ran, checking Ac4 and leading 20% pot have the same EV, I think checking is better vs. an in-position player who will play flop raises. Once we face the flop raise… ugh, even with hindsight, having run sims on this hand and thinking about it for a week, I still don’t really know what to do. Can we double-check our hand to make sure we don’t have a pair or a flush draw or an open-ender or something? Overall, I think shove is not a punt, but it has notes of punt. However, I think when you have three decisions in a hand, all of them have notes of punt, and you get it in bad, it adds up to something a worse than each individual decision. I’ll give this hand a

C+